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the doctrine of the Trinity if they think there is sufficient evidence for it, and if they please they may introduce it in their private devotions; only in public let them content themselves with such services as all their fellow-christians may join in.

Besides, nothing is more evident than that all the provision you make to secure uniformity of doctrine within your church, and especially the real belief of the doctrine of the Trinity, does not answer the end. It only produces refinements in sophistical casuistry. On some pretence or other very different opinions are well known to be held, and are even openly contended for, by the members of your communion; persons who subscribed all your articles, and who join in the habitual use of your Trinitarian Liturgy. Lady Moyer's Lecture was established for the sole purpose of inculcating the doctrine of the Trinity; and yet one of her lecturers, Dr. Benjamin Dawson, in his sermons on that very occasion, preached nothing but Socinianism under another name. The discourses are before the public, and may at any time be examined.

A very ingenious defence of Arianism was written by another member of your church, the Rev. Mr. Hopkins, lately deceased, entitled, "An Appeal to Common Sense." And there is no doubt of Dr. Clarke, Dr. Jortin, and Mr. Jackson, with many other learned and respectable members of your church, as well as Mr. Whiston, who honestly left the church on that account, and as Mr. Peirce, Mr. Emlyn, and Dr. Benson, among the Dissenters, having entertained the same opinion. It is also well known that the majority of the learned clergy are professed Arminians, though the compilers of the Articles, and great numbers of the more zealous of the clergy, are Calvinists. And to my certain knowledge there have been Unbelievers among your clergy as well as among those of the Church of Rome. It is not, therefore, uniformity of faith, but a system of hypocrisy, that is supported by your subscriptions. If, then, you be the friends of sincerity and truth, you will not hesitate to abolish them, especially in universities, where they ensnare and seduce the unwary and the uninformed.

That an agreement of Unitarians and Trinitarians in the public forms of worship is really practicable, and even not liable to much objection, is evident from the actual construction of by far the greater part of your public offices. For in them there are addresses to God the Father only. Consequently, if those prayers to which Unitarians now object were altered, so as to make them of a piece with the rest, and by this means the whole service were made uniform, it could not give any just cause of offence to those who now approve the greatest part of it.*

If this alteration were made, all the prayers in the Liturgy would be addressed to the one true God, and in the use of these prayers Trinitarians might certainly join, because they now do actually join in such prayers; mentally conceiving, if they please, and as I

It is a remarkable circumstance, that in the first part of the Liturgy there is no appearance of Trinitarianism. No Trinitarian doxology. Qu. Was not this the most early composed? (P.)

suppose they now do, that in this one God there are three persons; while the Unitarians could use the same form of words without any such ideas. If this one God was uniformly addressed by the appellation of Father, it is what no Trinitarian could reasonably object to; because it is the style in which the greater part of the prayers of the church are now drawn up, and to which he has, of course, been most accustomed.

We Unitarians should never exclude you from joining in our devotions, because we should not use any language that you could not adopt; but your Trinitarian forms absolutely exclude us. If, therefore, there be any sin in schism, it lies wholly at your door; because it is you who force us to separate ourselves, when, without any violation of your consciences, you might admit us to join with you. What, then, is there unreasonable in our demands, when you might grant them in their utmost extent without the least injury to yourselves? Thus the unity of the church, and the extinction of all seots, which is your own favourite object, depend entirely upon yourselves; and the acquisition would cost you nothing.

How glorious, my Lords, would it be to the heads of any Christian establishment to require nothing of the members of it besides the profession of our common Christianity, and to leave all particular opinions to every man's own conscience! Every cause of unpleasing contention would then be removed, and one of the most popular objections to Christianity would be removed with it, viz. the want of harmony among Christians. We should then meet as brethren, and the disciples of one common master; and with respect to all our differences, having no object but truth, they would be discussed without animosity. No opinion having then any thing in its favour besides its own proper evidence, all prejudice would much sooner give way; and truth, which we all profess to aim at, would be much sooner attained, and become universal.

But the honour of producing so great and glorious a revolution is, I believe, too great for any powers, civil or ecclesiastical, that will be able to effect it. It is a scheme worthy of God only, and which in due time will be brought about by his good providence, contrary to the wishes of all the ruling powers of the world, or of those who direct their councils. In the mean time, we Unitarians shall not fail to do every thing in our power to exhibit these enlarged views of things; confident that in this we are the instruments in the hands of Providence; that our principles being frequently exposed to view, will in time recommend themselves to all who are truly liberal and unprejudiced; and that all bigotry, like the darkness which it resembles, will at length give way before the light of truth.

With this glorious prospect before us, we willingly bear all the obloquy and every temporal inconvenience to which the open profession of our faith can expose us, and are infinitely happier in being opposed and frowned upon by the powers of the world, than you are in opposing us, with every advantage that the world can give you. Your associate says, that my "History of Early Opi

nions concerning Christ" appears by its title to be fraught with impious heretical theology; but such language only serves to amuse myself and friends, who, in the way which you call heresy, conscientiously worship the God of our fathers; and what you think to be most reproachful, we consider as highly honourable to us.

No. II.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE REV. JOHN PALMER, AND OF SOME
ARTICLES INTENDED BY HIM FOR THE REPOSITORY. *
(See supra, p. 76.)

MANY of our readers will be looking for the conclusion of the important article concerning the mission of John the Baptist, signed CHRISTOPHILOs, which, on the cover of the last number of this work, they were informed was delayed on account of the illness of the writer. It is with much concern I now acquaint them, that this truly excellent critic is no more. He died very suddenly, almost as soon as the notice above-mentioned was printed off. As he distinguished himself so much by his communications to this work, it will not, I think, be improper to give a short account of him in it, and of what I know of his intentions with respect to it, if it had pleased the Author of life to spare him longer. Having had much of his confidence, I know that I am at full liberty to inform our readers, that the person whose death they justly lament was the Rev. John Palmer, late of Macclesfield in Cheshire, but last of Birmingham, and that his other signatures in the Repository were SYMMACHUS† and ERASMUS. +

Besides being so considerable a contributor to this work, he was particularly useful to me, in correcting for the press, and recomposing any articles that seemed to require it. In this, and in many other respects, I consider myself in particular, as well as the Christian world, and the lovers of free inquiry in general, as having sustained a great loss by his death. Indeed, in benevolence, and a readiness to assist his friends, no man could exceed him. ardour in the cause of religious liberty, and his zeal to promote the interests of pure Christianity, were unbounded; and through his whole life, but more especially after the opening of the Repository, he gave a great proportion of his time to the study of the Scriptures; and in the pursuit of truth he was equally sagacious and fearless.

His

As Mr. Palmer's death was sudden, § and, through an almost

Theol. Repos. (1788), VI. pp. 217-224. + See ibid. IV. pp. 139, 484; V. p. 161.

See ibid. IV. p. 374.

His disorder was at first of the bilious kind; but in vomiting, a large bloodvessel was burst. After this, he was much weakened, something of a paralysis (which he thought to be the rheumatism) seized his hands and arms; and at last he was carried off by a stroke of the palsy. I dined with him the day before his death, (on Tuesday, the 26th of December,) when he thought himself better, and was very cheerful. (P.)

total incapacity of writing for the last half-year of his life, he has left few notes of what he had meditated, it is not in my power (though our conversation, whenever I was with him, chiefly turned on theological subjects, and what he was intending for the Repository) to favour our readers with many particulars; but the little that I am able to recollect of this kind I shall communicate. One

of the last things that he expressed was a wish to see me; and if there had been time for it, he would, I doubt not, have mentioned something relating to his articles for the Repository, and I should then have been able to give our readers much more satisfaction than I can now promise them.

One article more would have concluded what Mr. Palmer intended to communicate on the subject of the mission of John the Baptist; and it would have consisted chiefly of corollaries, the principal of which was, the impossibility of the truth of the chief particulars in the history of the miraculous conception, and of the birth of John; as they suppose such a knowledge of Jesus being the Messiah, as it is evident that neither the parents of John, nor the mother of Jesus, could have had; John himself, and our Lord's own disciples after the death of John, being ignorant, or at least very doubtful, with respect to it.

Mr. Palmer also intended to have shewn how his hypothesis, of the ignorance of John the Baptist concerning the messiahship of Jesus, throws light on many circumstances in the Gospel history. But there remained one difficulty, which he was not able to remove; and this related to our Lord's conversation with the woman of Samaria. On this occasion he acknowledged that he was the Messiah, and it was also known to all the inhabitants of the town of Sychar.

This, Mr. Palmer thought, was hardly consistent with the ignorance of the apostles in general of that important truth, some time afterwards, as the events are arranged in all harmonies. Our Lord's inquiry of his disciples, concerning what the people of the country in general, and even what themselves in particular, thought of him, implies that they had been left to their own reflections on the subject; and that neither John the Baptist, nor himself, had ever told them plainly that he was the Messiah.

Our Saviour's instructions also to the twelve, not to go into any city of the Samaritans, (Matt. x.,) Mr. Palmer thought was hardly consistent with himself having preached, and having acknowledged his true character, more explicitly to Samaritans than he had ever done to any Jews. This difficulty he would have stated, and have requested the assistance of our learned correspondents for the solution of it. This assistance I earnestly wish for myself.

Under the signature of SYMMACHUS, Mr. Palmer intended some farther illustration of the epistle to the Hebrews, † thinking that many passages in it decisively proved that the writer of it had no other idea of Jesus, than that of his being a mere man; and that no such hypothesis as that of his pre-existence (except on the

* See Theol. Repos. IV. pp. 50, 164, 219, 354, 463; V. pp. 64, 243. + See ibid. IV. p. 139; V.

Op. 161.

scheme of the Gnostics) had even been thought of in that early period.

Mr. Palmer had also planned an article in defence of the older Socinians, who maintained that Jesus, at the time that he received his commission, was actually taken up to heaven, or at least conceived himself to have been so taken up; and that it was to this that he alluded, when he spake of having come down from heaven. If Paul, Mr. Palmer thought, could imagine that he had been caught up to the third heaven, and could not tell whether what he experienced was a vision or a reality, well may we suppose that this had been the case with Christ, when he received his commission, and was instructed in all the particulars of it; which Mr. Palmer supposed took up the whole of the forty days, which, like Moses in the Mount, he passed fasting: for the temptation did not commence till these forty days were expired.

The Divine Being, though equally present in all places, yet being generally imagined to have a more particular place of residence in heaven, or above the clouds, it may well be supposed that our Saviour, during his intercourse with God, (in which he would, probably, be insensible of any connexion with the world,) would conclude that he was in heaven. Consequently, when the vision was over, and he found himself on the earth, he would suppose that he had been brought down by the same power that had taken him up.

This hypothesis, Mr. Palmer thought, furnishes a better solution of our Saviour's saying that he had come down from heaven, and that he must ascend to the place where he had been before, than to suppose that he was really sensible that he had never been in the place that is called heaven, but, by every phrase of this nature, only meant his having had communications with God while he was on the earth. I acknowledge myself to be much pleased with Mr. Palmer's ideas on this subject.

Lastly, Mr. Palmer had planned an article in answer to a criticism of NEPIODIDASCALOS,* on the word 5, "he is beside himself," Mark iii. 21, in which he would have defended our common translation, and the application of the phrase to Christ, on the idea that, though, when interpreted literally, it signifies that a person is mad; yet, in a secondary sense, it might express only the very friendly regard of Jesus's mother and his brethren for him; when they thought that he was fatiguing himself too much, and in danger of hurting himself, as they might naturally suppose of him, in the circumstances in which he then was. He had been teaching all the preceding day, had spent the whole night on a mountain, probably without food, had afterwards chosen and instructed the twelve apostles, and was then surrounded by a great multitude, with whom he was engaged in earnest conversation. Among these were some Pharisees, with whom, on their saying that he cast out demons by the help of Beelzebub, he was expostulating with particular vehemence.

In these circumstances, Mr. Palmer thought that the friends of

Wakefield. Theol. Repos. IV. pp. 227-230.

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